A PRACTICAL GUIDE FOR CLEANING BUSINESS OWNERS
Price the work.
Protect the margin.
How to build a recurring office-cleaning bid from your own costs, with a worked example you can check.
By Junaid Mustafa, creator of SweepMargin · September 20, 2026 · All figures below are illustrative assumptions, not industry rates or a recommended quote for a particular building.
Start with the walkthrough
Two offices with the same floor area can take different amounts of time. Record the rooms, restrooms, floor surfaces, trash points, occupancy, access restrictions, and cleaning frequency. Estimate hours from the actual scope and time logs from similar work. ISSA explains the variables involved in cleaning times. SweepMargin is independent and has no ISSA affiliation.
- Separate recurring tasks from initial deep cleaning and occasional floor work.
- Confirm who supplies consumables such as paper towels and hand soap.
- Count paid travel, setup, locking up, and alarm procedures where applicable.
- Write down exclusions and how changes to the scope will be priced.
Add costs before choosing a price
For this example, assume a 5,000 sq ft office visited three times a week, 52 weeks a year. Two workers each clean for two hours and have 15 additional paid minutes for travel or setup. Each earns $20/hour, with a 20% payroll burden.
Average monthly visits = 3 × 52 ÷ 12 = 13. Paid hours per visit = 2 × (2 + 15 ÷ 60) = 4.5. Loaded hourly labor cost = $20 × 1.20 = $24.
| Cost | Calculation | Monthly |
|---|---|---|
| Loaded labor | 13 × 4.5 × $24 | $1,404.00 |
| Supplies | 13 × $8 | $104.00 |
| Travel expense | 13 × $10 | $130.00 |
| Equipment | 13 × $5 | $65.00 |
| Allocated overhead | Assumed monthly allocation | $100.00 |
| Base cost | Sum above | $1,803.00 |
| Contingency | 5% of base cost | $90.15 |
| Modeled cost | Base + contingency | $1,893.15 |
Travel expense covers vehicle, parking, or mileage costs; paid travel time belongs in labor. Avoid counting the same item twice. Allocate insurance, administration, and other overhead consistently across jobs.
Margin and markup produce different prices
Margin is profit divided by price. Markup is profit divided by cost. Adding 25% to a $750 cost gives a $937.50 price and a 20% margin. To leave 25% of revenue after that cost, price at $750 ÷ 0.75 = $1,000.
For this example: $1,893.15 ÷ 0.75 = $2,524.20 per month. Modeled operating profit is $631.05. The 25% target is an example, not an industry benchmark.
Check what happens when the job takes longer
If cleaning takes 20% longer, each worker needs 2.4 cleaning hours instead of 2. Keeping setup time and the selling price unchanged, the modeled margin falls from 25% to about 14.6%. This is why measuring time on early visits matters.
Costs alone do not determine whether a buyer will accept your quote. Review the scope, buyer expectations, and your capacity before sending it. Costs you omit will not appear in the result. The model excludes income taxes and financing costs, and does not guarantee profit.
Check your own numbers — free ↗Make the proposal easy to understand
A useful proposal states the service location, areas included, task frequency, schedule, monthly price, any applicable sales tax, exclusions, and next steps. Keep wages, internal overhead, and your profit calculation out of the client-facing version.
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